


Everything is pants

by Aliawrites



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-22
Updated: 2012-09-22
Packaged: 2017-11-14 19:18:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/518642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aliawrites/pseuds/Aliawrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another post "Counter Culture Blues" tag/missing scene - this one right after the dip in the lake. (originally written with the aid of a bottle of wine - fixed a couple of Britpicks)</p><p>“Sir! I will give you £100 to go to my place and pick me up some clothes to wear. These things leave nothing to the imagination! I can’t walk out of here like this! Please, sir. £200 - whatever it takes, I’m begging you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything is pants

After Richie put the gun down and Lewis got himself up off the ground, James noticed that Franco was struggling. Kneeling down, to try to see if the other man’s airway was still blocked, he saw the panicked look in his eyes as he grabbed out for him. “Drug…” Franco managed. “Vern… drugged…”

Calling to add an ambulance to the already approaching sirens, Lewis secured the scene while James helped the obviously drugged Franco into the house before the cold air combined with wet clothes - especially exactly what their clothes were wet with - resulted in an increased chance of ill effects.

Shouting out as he entered the house, James ordered Kitten and Mac to wait outside to direct the incoming police to the crime scene and got directions from Caroline to the nearest bathroom with a shower. Trying his best to not gag from the smell of their clothes, amplified now they were in an enclosed space, he told Caroline to bring blankets, quickly. Police training coming in handy in issuing short, clear commands to keep the shocked woman from shutting down or running away.

He’d gotten his own jacket off and Franco’s jacket, shirt and boots off by the time Caroline appeared and dropped the blankets with a cry. “Help me wrap him in one of those. They’ll have to cut the jeans off, but he’s been drugged and pushed in the macerator - we need to keep him warm till help gets here.”

Understanding came back to her quickly and Caroline helped James to wrap Franco in the blanket and roll him onto his side into the recovery position. 

“I need you to watch him carefully and if he seems to be struggling to breathe or if he stops breathing I want you to call out to me, OK?” 

She nodded absently before looking back up to him panicked. “Where are you…?”

It was an upgraded bathroom, with the older part, containing the toilet, basin and tub in one part, and a smaller ‘shower room’, having been added later, on the other side of a wall. It was still against procedure, to leave Caroline alone with the victim, but he was willing to take the reprimand - besides he was fairly certain there was no part of any police procedure rulebook that dealt expressly with what to do while waiting for an ambulance to arrive when the victim and the cop had been submerged in a lake of shit.

Picking up one of the blankets between two fingers only and holding it away from himself to try to keep it as clean as possible he walked around the wall, started the shower and stripped off his remaining soiled clothing. He kept up a steady stream of questions and conversation to make sure Caroline was watching Franco and remaining calm and in much less time than he would have liked to have been under the warm spray of water, using more soap than should be possible, he stepped out and wrapped himself as completely as he could with the blanket and came back out into the outer room.

“Thank you Caroline,” he said softly. “Can you go and wait out front and direct the ambulance crew to us when they arrive?”

 

After settling the grieving Richie into the back of the car and watching it drive off, Lewis heard James’ voice arguing with someone out front so he made his way out to see what the problem was.

“I’m fine!” James was arguing. “He’s the one who was drugged. I just need a change of clothes, that’s all.”

“Sir, you need to be checked…” the technician was trying to lead the non-compliant Hathaway to the ambulance.

“Hathaway,” Robbie called, walking over and taking pity on the technician who, even in boots didn’t come up to James’ shoulder while he was barefoot. “Jesus, man. It’s freezing out here and you’re standing there in your bare feet. Stop giving the nice lady a hard time and get in the ambulance.” 

“But, sir..” James started, but Robbie was having none of it and taking him by his blanket-covered elbow he lead him over to the ambulance and into it where the wise technician quickly buckled him in. 

“Let them check you over, sergeant,” he said with gentle sternness. “That’s an order if it needs to be. I’ll be by to pick you up as soon as I get things sorted here.” As the ambulance door closed and it drove away Robbie smiled at the sulking look his young sergeant had been wearing.

Two hours later and though the scene wasn’t completely cleared yet, it was settled enough that the inspector could leave it to the SOCOs and uniforms to finish up. Normally he could have gotten away much quicker, but without his trusty and efficient sergeant at his side, he’d had to do everything himself!

He’d heard from the hospital that James had been checked and though he wasn’t being admitted, he was being held for a couple of hours more for observation to make sure nothing virulent had taken up residence in his lungs thanks to his swim in - well, stuff that has no business being near anyone’s lungs.

Walking around the curtain where they’d directed him to find his sergeant, Robbie had to smile at the desolate long thin lump wrapped in blankets that was James on the bed. All he could see was the back of the lad’s head sticking out the top of the blankets, but even with that, he recognised a sulk when he saw one. James was always such an enigma - so cool and calm and mature beyond his years all the time until just the right, or no, just the right *wrong* thing happens or is said, and he switches instantly to vulnerable or hurt, or even full out sulk from time to time. 

Smiling gently and trying not to feel too ‘parental’ about his sad, sulky sergeant, Robbie took comfort from the steady heartbeat evident on the monitor beside the bed before clearing his throat. “Alright, James?”

“Sir!” James started, rolling over and wincing as he sat up. “They’re refusing to let me out until at least 6 but I will give you £100 to go to my place and pick me up some clothes to wear.”

“They didn’t give you anything you could borrow?”

With a look somewhere between humiliation and frustration, James pulled back the blanket slightly to show what they’d given him before quickly covering back up. Though they had obviously scrounged up a set of doctor’s ‘scrubs’, the bottoms were several inches too short, and with nothing under, they didn’t quite cover the man’s modesty, and the top just barely came down low enough to cover the top of the synched to within an inch of their lives bottoms.

“How they managed to find something both this much too big and too small is beyond me - these things leave nothing to the imagination! I can’t walk out of here like this! Please, sir. £200 - whatever it takes, I’m begging you.”

“No payment necessary, sergeant,” Robbie said with a smile. “But what about your keys eh? Are they at the bottom of that... thing?”

“No sir! One small mercy is that nothing was in my suit pockets - well some cash, but I told them they were welcome to keep that - but my keys, phone, everything was still in my coat. Please tell me it’s still in your car.”

“It is,” Robbie said. “Anything you want in particular?”

“Just actual real clothes that fit,” James lamented. “And pants! And socks, and shoes… and some cigarettes…”

“Alright, I’ll get you the whole kit. I’m embarrassed to say it, but I don’t even know where you live though…”

 

Pulling up to Hathaway’s flat in a nice-ish area, Robbie parked and let himself in and once again wondered about the mysterious background of his sergeant when he considered how much a place like this must cost compared with a sergeant’s salary. High ceilings, nice moulding, modern upgrades and appointments, this was a nice place. Glancing through to the garden, also nicely kept, he wondered if James had a flatmate he’d never mentioned in order to afford a place like this, but a cursory glance (he was never going to snoop), showed no evidence of anyone but James. A couple of guitars, lots of books, records, CDs…

Filing the thoughts for a later time, he jogged up the stairs past a loo and into what he hoped was James’ bedroom and opening the wardrobe to find neatly hung suits and shirts he knew he’d found the right place. 

Emptying a bookbag of its books, he gathered everything he thought the man would need to leave the hospital with dignity, shaking his head at the near obsessive neatness of James' wardrobe. Bypassing the suits, he grabbed a pair of well-worn jeans he’d seen the young man wear when he was off duty, a couple of long sleeved knit shirts, pants, socks and, smiling at how impossibly young his sergeant actually was, he grabbed a comfortable looking hoodie to add to the bag. On his way out he also grabbed a scarf, knowing the evening was growing ever cooler.

The casual clothes in the bag, he hoped, would assure that James would come home after being released instead of in to work. There would be plenty of time tomorrow for James to do his reports about what had happened at the farm. He’d done enough today already, saving a man’s life and helping to figure out who had murdered a young boy and two other people - all for money.

Before he left James’ place he notched up the heat a titch and left a light on in the kitchen. It would be dark when he brought Hathaway back home, hopefully with a case of beer and a bag full of takeaway for them to share as they pre-planned the reports they’d do the next day along with all the other boring old policework that awaited them. All of it a reminder that life goes on - even after nasty men killed, and good men had to get covered in shit to save someone from becoming yet another victim.


End file.
